Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

GNOME 3.10 has been released today with some important changes such as initial Wayland support, header bars (client side decorations), a new system menu for GNOME Shell which combines the previous system status menus and of course, updated core GNOME apps as well as some new applications.

Let's take a look at what's new!

GNOME 3.10 video

Below you can watch a video I've recorded earlier today with some of the changes in GNOME 3.10:

GNOME Shell / Settings changes

GNOME Shell hasn't received many changes, but GNOME 3.10 introduces a pretty important change: the old system status menus have been replaced with a new System Menu:

The System Menu is more compact and includes brightness and sound sliders, quick access to wireless networks, battery status as well as settings, lock screen and shutdown buttons. The language selector continues to use a separate menu as you can see in the screenshot above.

Another pretty major change in the latest GNOME 3.10 is the introduction of "header bars" or "client side decorations". These decorations use the GTK+ toolkit and theme engine:

As you can see, the close button is now displayed inline with the toolbar which saves spaces but unfortunately it also creates an even bigger discrepancy between GNOME core apps and the other applications, because only the core GNOME apps use these client side decorations.

Client side decorations can also change state, here are two screenshots that showcase it:

With GNOME 3.10, there are also quite a few changes to Settings (Control Center):

the lock screen background can now be changed via the Background settings;

new date and time settings; there's also a new feature here: automatically change the computer's timezone based on the current location;

new zoom mode for the scrollbars which allow for fine scrolling - to use it, hold SHIFT while clicking on the scrollbar thumb;

smartcards are now supported as an alternate way to log in or unlock the screen;

password authentication can now be disabled, forcing just fingerprint or smartcard authentication;

initial Wayland support;

high resolution (HiDPI) support.

GNOME 3.10 core apps

With GNOME 3.10, three applications that were available as a preview in GNOME 3.8, are now fully integrated: Bijiben, a note taking app, GNOME Weather and GNOME photos:

Bijiben

GNOME Weather

GNOME Weather

GNOME Photos

Bijiben now supports collections and is integrated with OwnCloud. Also, now the notes can show up in the GNOME Shell search. An interesting feature in Bijiben which might be available in the future for other GNOME apps as well is the right click menu which looks like the one used on touch devices:

The latest GNOME Photos features Flickr support, albums, share images to devices that support UPNP such as a TV, phone or another computer and more. Weather hasn't received any important changes except for the new client side decorations.

There are also 3 new preview apps for GNOME 3.10: Music and Maps and Software:

GNOME Music

GNOME Maps

GNOME Software

Another new application is Photos, which features Flickr support, albums, share images to devices that support UPNP such as a TV, phone or another computer and more.

Changes in the other core GNOME applications:

Web: DuckDuck go is now the default search engine; Web now has a search provider for GNOME Shell which allows accessing your web history or searching the web from the GNOME Shell Activities

Contacts: UI enhancements, updated setup and accounts dialogs

Tweak Tool: redesigned for GNOME 3.10 and includes new options, such as startup applications management, etc.

Clocks: Pretty new analog timer in stopwatch and timer views as well as geolocation support

Boxes: support for importing system images (QEMU, raw, vdi - Virtualbox 1.1 image format, vmdk - VMware 3 and 4, vpc and cloop) as well as many UI and other fixes

Web (Epiphany)

GNOME Tweak Tool

GNOME Clocks

Up next: GNOME 3.12, which should introduce a Sound Recorder preview release, full Wayland support, Systemd for the user session, colour tinting in GNOME Shell, videos application implementation, support for Facebook in GNOME photos, integrate Zimbra in GNOME, Git integration in the developer experience as well as ratings, screenshots and history support in GNOME Software.